Vans Reports Steep Drop in Revenue, Profit : Finance: Orange-based shoemaker earned well under half that of previous year. Acting President Schoenberg is named CEO.

ORANGE —  Vans Inc. reported $2.7 million in profit, or 28 cents a share, for its latest fiscal year.

That was down sharply from a profit of $6.5 million, or 72 cents a share, for the previous year. The shoemaker’s revenue for the 12 months ended May 31 was $86.6 million, down from $91.2 million.

The Orange-based company also reported that Walter E. Schoenfeld, board vice chairman and acting president, has been elected president and chief executive officer. “We are extremely pleased with the direction Mr. Schoenfeld is taking Vans and are confident that he is the right person to lead the company at this time,” Vans Chairman George E. McCown said.

Schoenfeld on Thursday offered a blunt evaluation of Vans’ financial status. “The business is not where I would like it to be,” he said, but “we made some real progress in the last six weeks of the fourth quarter, particularly with regard to getting our expenses back in line.”

“As for sales,” Schoenfeld said, “I believe our biggest problem has been a lack of new styles over the past 18 months.”

To remedy the latter problem, Vans is developing a number of new styles that will be introduced later this year and in the spring of 1994, Schoenfeld said. The company will also open new factory outlet stores to deal with excess inventory and is working to secure earlier orders from customers, which “enables us to manufacture more efficiently,” he said.

Schoenfeld said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the company’s manufacturing and marketing changes will bolster profitability.

For its fourth fiscal quarter, Vans posted a profit of $1.2 million, or 13 cents a share. That compared to earnings of $3.4 million, or 35 cents a share, for the same period a year earlier. Sales totaled $22.7 million, down from $24.9 million.

In Thursday’s trading on the NASDAQ market, Vans stock fell 75 cents a share to close at $7.125. The earnings announcement was made after the market closed.